


somewhere in my memory

by RC_McLachlan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Bulma Briefs is the queen we deserve, Don't copy to another website, Earth vs. Saiyan customs, F/M, Holidays, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RC_McLachlan/pseuds/RC_McLachlan
Summary: In the early hours of Christmas, Vegeta and Bulma have a little chat.Vegeta looks at her, disappointment writ large on his face. Mostly his eyebrows. "I expected more from you."She never really understood the phrase 'one's jaw hit the floor' before now, but it totally makes sense because hers just left a crater between her feet. "Vegeta, I'm not gonna shoot Santa out of the sky."
Relationships: Bulma Briefs/Vegeta
Comments: 23
Kudos: 433





	somewhere in my memory

**Author's Note:**

> The spirit moved me.

An earthquake jolts Bulma out of a sound sleep, and she stumbles out of bed to stand in the doorway. A long moment passes before she wakes up enough to realize there's no earthquake at all, but her entire body is shaking. Not just shaking, but shivering. Holy shit, she's _cold_. 

Which is impossible. She hasn't woken up cold in years thanks to the Super Saiyan space heater she married. Vegeta throws off so much heat that she usually makes him sleep on the roof in the summer, because even the strongest air conditioner—one modified by her own hand, even—is no match for the ki a saiyan radiates. She has no idea how Chi-Chi can stand it. 

Rubbing at her arms frantically to absolutely zero effect, she stomps back to the bed and kicks it. "Hey, jackass, does your thermal fuse need replac—"

Except there's no one there to tell her to shut up and go back to sleep.

Bulma rubs at her eyes and groans. Goddammit. They talked about this. They all _agreed_. Gravity simulator training ended at 9:00pm on the dot and could resume at 5:00am, if only to keep Trunks on a schedule that wouldn't have him nodding off in school. She's already on thin ice with his teacher for his "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" essay. Not to mention that after tonight's endless Christmas party, there's no way in hell either of them should have the energy to go a few rounds.

Sighing, she throws on some pants and her ratty old robe, then ventures down the hall toward Trunks's room. That stupid Great Saiyaman action figure he begged her for will be the perfect incentive to get his ass back to bed. She has no problem holding it hostage until he sticks to the rules _he_ helped come up with. She can be the bad guy, no problem. It's the one role she's always secretly wanted to play.

But there's no need to be a supervillain—at least not tonight—because Trunks is sprawled among the Great Saiyaman sheets he hides whenever Gohan comes for a visit, dreaming sugar plum dreams and leaking a worryingly huge amount of drool onto his pillowcase. The Great Saiyaman is drowning.

Could be worse. Trunks could still be wetting the bed. 

She quietly shuts the door, then heads downstairs, wishing she'd had the wherewithal to put on slippers or something. The floors are fucking freezing. 

As she passes the living room where the cleaning bots are picking up the last bits of party trash, she glances at the tree, lit up like a firefight, tinsel perfectly in place. There's no reason for her to stop that she can see, but there's _something_ in there that doesn't belong. A dark presence lurks in the shadows, simmering with wicked intent. Its stare is covetous and feels like hands running over her skin, prompting a shiver that has nothing to do with how goddamn cold she is, and that's enough to break the thrall. 

"So… do I _want_ to know why you're sitting in the dark like a serial killer?" Bulma leans in the doorway and crosses her arms. 

From the nebulous threat on the other end of the room, there comes a scoff. "You think it wise to mouth off to someone who _was_ a serial killer at one point?"

"Oh, please." She rolls her eyes. "You _wish_ they'd make a documentary about you."

There's no response to that. Kind of like how FlickNet didn't respond to the anonymous pitch for a docuseries based on the true story of an evil alien who reforms through the power of love and family—mysteriously postmarked from Capsule Corp. Goku had to talk him out of blowing up their headquarters. And it wasn't so much talking him out of it as it was beating the shit out of him. 

"Seriously though, are you contemplating the meaning of Christmas or do you just really like looking at the tree?"

"I'm waiting."

"For what, the Ghost of Christmas Future?"

She can't see him narrow his eyes, but she knows in her bones—the way she knows the sky is blue, that aliens exist, that she's one intergalactic asshole away from snapping and taking over the galaxy herself—that he does. 

"For _him_."

The last time that kind of menace clung to his voice he had an ugly 'M' stamped on his forehead and destroyed half a stadium. He hasn't needed the rage or the pain to fuel him in years; he might say he trains so he can obliterate Goku, but she knows his only goal is to be ready for whatever future threat might descend upon their home.

It shouldn't worry her to hear it now, but it does. She inhales through her nose and steps into the room, drawing near enough to see his outline in the darkness.

He's rigid in the overstuffed wingback chair—the first piece of furniture they decided on together, and he only went with it because it looked a bit like a throne—with his hands clenched into fists upon the arms. She squints a little and sees with the help of the fairy lights on the tree that they're shaking, just a very little.

"Vegeta," Bulma says, but it isn't enough to draw his attention away from the tree. "'Him' who?"

Maybe Frieza's back again. Maybe it's another one of Gero's misbegotten creations rearing its ugly head, or a facet of Buu they missed the first time around. Or maybe this is something new, a different spider with a different web looking to trap them—

" _Claus_."

Or maybe she's not paid enough to deal with this shit. 

She exhales and tries to stave off the migraine she knows is going to explode because of this. "Are you telling me that you're awake at two in the morning and I'm standing here freezing my ass off because you're hoping to catch _Santa_?"

"Ha! As if I could rest knowing an omnipresent magician could break through our security at any moment. The second he crosses the threshold, I'll be ready for him."

"You've been on Earth for thirteen years. Why is this suddenly an issue? You've never once brought Santa up before now."

Finally, Vegeta breaks his stare with the tree to look at her, disappointment writ large on his face. Mostly his eyebrows. "I would have expected you to have shot him out of the sky long ago." 

She never really understood the phrase 'one's jaw hit the floor' before now, but it totally makes sense because hers just left a crater between her feet. "Vegeta, I'm not gonna shoot down Saint Nick, are you insane?"

"Are you frightened of him? Is that what this is?" He stands up and brings up one of his fists. With a small _woosh_ , it bursts into gold flame. It outshines the tree. "Fine. I'll bring the fight to him. Trunks says he's guarded by nine reindeer; it'll hardly be a challenge."

Bulma squints. "Okay, what did the little gremlin we call our son tell you, exactly?"

"This red man is omniscient; he sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake, Bulma. He bends time to his will and metes judgment to those he deems worthy. You put out tribute to him every year as if to placate him so he might give you another year of peace!" To punctuate that, Vegeta gestures at the tree and the spray snow in the windows. "If it's fear that has stayed your hand all this time, you can be sure this is the last you'll have to feel it."

Sometimes it's hard to believe this is the same man who once threatened their lives on a daily basis, especially when he says things like this. Sometimes it's also hard to believe she willingly pledged her life to someone who's such a fucking dipshit.

Sighing, she steps forward and slots herself against his side, dropping her cheek onto his shoulder. "Vegeta, I hate to break it to you, but Santa isn't actually real."

He scoffs. "Of course he is. Trunks said—"

"Trunks says a lot of things, babe, and you shouldn't listen to any of them. Santa Claus is a story. He's something kids believe in, you know, like a fairy tale. Um, he's basically a mascot for the Christmas season. He doesn't exist at all."

"Then why put up the tree?"

"Just decoration. You know, the Christmas spirit."

"How do the gifts arrive?"

"That'd be me. I usually put them out an hour before I wake Trunks up and force you out of the simulator."

"Why does Kakarot dress up in that red suit if not to pay tribute?"

Ah, yes, the ubiquitous Santa costume Goku wears to her Christmas Eve party every year. Bulma shrugs and makes a see-saw gesture with her hand. "Honestly, I think it might be a kink thing, but I'm too afraid to ask Chi-Chi about it. I really don't need to know."

The fight that had been roiling in him goes out of him so fast she can actually feel him deflate. He's going to make a break for it. She can feel it. But before he can shrug her off and go stew in his humiliation somewhere on the other side of the world, she snugs up a little closer and wraps an arm around his waist. The chill leeches from her bones almost immediately, no match for the onslaught of Vegeta's ki. She gives a happy sigh.

"I should've blown up this wretched mudball when I had the chance."

She smiles and presses a kiss to his shoulder. "Oh c'mon, Earth can't be the only joint in the universe with stupid customs."

There are a bajillion worlds out there, and he's been to at least a thousand of them and experienced their cultures firsthand. Vegeta once ranted for two hours about the fashion on some planet called Yibbeturn and what a genuine pleasure it was to blow it up, so it stands to reason one of them must have something worse than Santa. 

"Every year, on the last full moon, children would leave the dried gizzards of their final kill for the year out for Rüt to inspect."

Her breath catches. "Rüt?"

Fingers that have felled entire solar systems creep over her hip and gently stroke the threadbare cotton of her robe. "Rüt was… a spirit, I suppose. Saiyan children laid out the gizzards at night in the hopes Rüt would take them. If the child's offering was gone the next morning, it was a… a good omen. It meant their power level would double the following year."

She closes her eyes, the afterimage of the tree lights dancing behind her lids, and imagines a wild-haired child clad in armor, burdened by the obligations of his birth, throwing off the gold-limned blankets in his enormous bed and running outside, heart pounding, alight with the hope the offering he laid out the night before was nowhere to be found.

A laugh bubbles on her tongue, but she bites it back enough to ask, "That's both disgusting and adorable. What did Rüt have to say about yours?"

Vegeta's reply, when it comes, is warm. "My offerings were always taken, of course. It wasn't until my second year in Frieza's employ that I learned Nappa had been the one to dispose of them. I beat him so badly for lying to me that he spent four days in a tank." 

It's better than the best Christmas gift she's ever received. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays!


End file.
